


Scope 'n' Cope

by djsoliloquy



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Awkwardness, Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2012-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-11 19:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/482120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djsoliloquy/pseuds/djsoliloquy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Figuring out how to fit on the same tiny bed probably isn't the time to come to terms with how neither of them are up-close-and-personal kind of blokes.</p><p>In which the Snipers cuddle. Awkwardly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scope 'n' Cope

There’s no privacy to speak of at the bases and it’s too far, too redundant, and too conspicuous to drive into town—in _camper vans_ —for a motel. But with winter on the way, the RED and BLU Snipers begin finding it difficult to meet. Neither wants to trek out to one of the drafty neutral outposts when the temperature’s near freezing.

So they move matters into the vans themselves. 

For Sniper, being in the BLU’s camper van is strangely intimate in a way coming all over the man’s hands doesn’t really encompass. Everything else about their arrangement is the very definition of discretion and professionalism, and a hint of the forbidden manages to sneak in only at the thought of being in Blue’s personal space as well as his pants. The camper van isn't exactly Blue's home, but it's like being in his home in all the ways that matter. More than sharing a motel could ever be, with the just-washed cup on the counter, a rumpled hand towel tossed aside, smells of gun grease and laundry soap that aren’t the same as Red’s yet still register as being familiar. 

They’re running later than usual the evening Blue invites him to stay. It's casual, offhand. Blue mumbles something about the spies being at it all hours lately, trying to out-spy each other or whatever the spooks do in their off time. Probably easier just to settle in until morning. 

That sounds sensible enough to Sniper. Also the wind outside is blowing cold enough to freeze a man’s balls off, so he agrees to stay. They stand in the limited space of the van’s floor, half-dressed and suddenly contemplating logistics. 

Blue scratches the back of his neck. “The bed’s, ah.” He gestures to the space above the cab where the mattress is. “Not much. I can make do on the front seat if you like, seeing as you’re the guest.”

Sniper’s heart is still hammering from their sexual romp over every other surface of the camper besides the bed. Not that there were _many_ of them—and the van’s premise of providing for only one occupant is no better illustrated than in the coffin-sized sleep compartment—but the offer to sleep separately rings of absurdity anyway.

Strictly speaking they haven’t been in bed together yet. Never seem to make it that far.

Sniper claps his hand on Blue’s shoulder and gives the fresh bite mark there a rub. Blue notices the deliberate placement immediately, if the way his face heats up is any indication.

“Course I’m not sending you to the floor, mate,” Sniper says. “We’ll make it work.”

Turns out fitting into the bed space is the easy part. Sniper climbs up first then watches as Blue pulls himself onto the mattress in sections, hands then knees, hunched over to not hit his head on the ceiling. He doesn’t look like he needs assistance but Sniper reaches out and puts his hand over Blue’s hip anyway, a steadying motion, and he smirks to himself at the expression of preoccupied absorption on his counterpart’s face as they get situated around each other.

Blue doesn’t mention the touch but does catch him staring. “What?”

“You don’t even concentrate that hard when you’re looking down your scope,” says Sniper. “And I should know.”

That earns a grudging little smile. “This is different.”

And he’s absolutely right, though Sniper's can't just come out and agree with him. Spooning with the enemy's different from anything else, even from having sex with him—though they vetoed any actual spooning, both of them touch uncomfortable with someone right up behind them. 

Figuring out how to fit on the same tiny bed probably isn’t the time to come to terms with how neither of them are up-close-and-personal kind of blokes. Proximity is the least of it. They end up slanted towards each other, overlapping. Elbows and tangled legs and cold toes aside, there are other hidden secrets to fitting that Sniper hadn’t thought of. Breathing, for one. It feels off until he notices and tries to coordinate when they inhale, then they get on the same pattern and that’s almost worse.

Though it is nice in its way, and pleasantly toasty under the blanket after a few minutes, cold toes aside. Prolonged intimate contact just isn’t either of their fortes. It probably isn’t anyone’s when the cuddling involves someone who’s paid to kill you most days from nine to five, not to mention someone you’re paid to kill right back. Sniper wonders where people usually put their arms and legs when they do this sort of thing.

For a while they remain still and, for all intents and purposes, pretend the other doesn’t exist. As a ploy it doesn’t last long.

“Still awake?” Blue says to the ceiling. He actually does sound tired.

Sniper mumbles a quiet affirmative against Blue’s collarbone. In a way he finally gives up. It’s too dark to see much, but he’s noticed before that the inside of Blue’s arm is rougher than the skin around it. He reaches across Blue’s chest and brushes an exploratory hand over that tract of skin. “How about you?” he says while he softly begins his study.

“Still awake,” Blue confirms. He doesn’t ask Sniper to stop, so Sniper doesn’t.

He rubs the underside of Blue’s wrist with his nails and backs of his knuckles, gentle on the scar tissue and a little fascinated. It could be from a childhood of bracer-less practice or just one slip on a bow with a strong enough draw, though somehow Sniper can’t picture the latter.

“Gotta learn how somehow,” Blue says, reading his mind. His chuckle is gruff and nostalgic, loud under Sniper’s ear. “I suppose everyone’s a little stupid when they’re young.”

Sniper feels Blue’s breathing, steady if not slow yet. The pattern doesn't seem as forced anymore as both of them relax. “You want to hear about learning experiences then you don’t know the half of it,” says Sniper. He hikes his leg over Blue, hooking his ankle around a thigh. “Feel that?” he says, grabbing Blue’s hand and running it down his leg, over his own scars. “Croc bite, that bugger must have been over four meters. Shot his bloody brains out right before he dragged me into the river.”

Blue’s fingers squeeze thoughtfully over the nicks in his skin. “Young and stupid, eh?”

“Well, you’d think so from the way my dad tells it.”

He can hear the smirk in Blue’s voice. “I meant the croc for trying to bite off more than he could chew. You know, I got bit by a sheep once.”

A few questions drift to the forefront of Sniper’s mind, of which he decides the most immediately pertinent is, “Where'd it bite?”

“Oh…” Blue says and draws Sniper’s hand around his other side, almost in an embrace. “Must have been back around there somewhere.”

Then Blue’s hand settles on Sniper’s leg again, and Sniper isn’t sure whether to laugh or roll his eyes. He can’t feel any scars of note, but that’s probably to be expected from one of the conniving BLUs. Yet, somehow, they appear to actually fit now. Sniper doesn’t move his arm from around Blue’s waist. 

He settles for closing his eyes and easing more into this new position instead. “There many sheep on stilts where you’re from?”

“That could be a tad high,” Blue agrees, sleepy and noncommittal. “Try lower.”

Sniper’s comfortable and content enough to let that one go till morning when he has a thought that makes him sit up. Though only a little, to avoid a sudden blunt lobotomy from the camper van ceiling.

“Blue, why didn’t we just drive me back to the RED base?”

He hadn’t thought about it and honestly doesn’t know, and that bothers him. It takes some time for a reply, the air full of that thick quiet sound of thinking that convinces Sniper that Blue hadn’t thought of it either. 

“Suspicious,” Blue says at last, reassured in their fabricated if entirely legitimate excuse. “Would’ve looked suspicious.”

After a moment Sniper turns back to him, away from the chill outside the blanket. “Too right it would,” he mutters, and they sleep soundly for the next six hours before rising early for another day of work.


End file.
